Draft:Untitled Rian Johnson Star Wars film

An upcoming American space opera film is being written and directed by Rian Johnson. Produced by Lucasfilm and set to be distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, the film will be part of the Star Wars franchise and the first installment in a new trilogy.

Johnson was set to create a new trilogy of Star Wars films after making Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017), and was announced to be writing and directing the first installment in November 2017. The project has since been de-prioritized by Lucasfilm due to Johnson's commitments to other projects.

Development
After a positive experience working with writer/director Rian Johnson and producer Ram Bergman to make Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017), the eighth film in the Star Wars franchise's main "Skywalker Saga" film series, Lucasfilm hired Johnson to create a new trilogy of films. This was announced in November 2017, one month before The Last Jedi release, when Johnson was set to write and direct the first installment of the new trilogy and Bergman was confirmed to be returning as producer. The new films would be separate from the Skywalker Saga and focus on new characters in a previously unexplored area of the Star Wars galaxy. Lucasfilm was interested in having Johnson return to make the ninth Skywalker Saga film, which became Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019), before Johnson pitched the idea of a separate trilogy that would take the franchise in a new direction. This was considered to be a "better long-term bet" for Johnson than concluding the Skywalker Saga with its ninth film. He did not pitch any specific characters or setting details before signing up to make the trilogy.

At the end of November 2017, Johnson said he was just starting to come up with ideas for the new trilogy, but he was still busy promoting the release of The Last Jedi. In December, Johnson said he had total freedom to come up with new ideas and his trilogy would not be a spin-off of The Rise of Skywalker or any other existing part of the franchise. He acknowledged fan interest in a film adaptation of the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic video games which are set centuries before the Skywalker Saga films, but said he was not interested in adapting existing ideas for his new films. Johnson also said that he was open to other filmmakers working on the second and third installments of his trilogy based off his work on the first film and an overall story that he would develop, and he had previously expressed interest in seeing more women and people of color directing Star Wars films.

Though The Last Jedi was a critical and commercial success, it became a divisive film for Star Wars fans as some took issue with certain story and character decisions made by Johnson. He said his new trilogy would not be influenced by this response, noting that most Star Wars projects received a "big, loud response" from passionate Star Wars fans and he felt it was not possible to please everyone when working on a big franchise. Some fans began to call for Lucasfilm to abandon the new trilogy, and Johnson debunked rumors in September 2018 and February 2019 that the films had been cancelled. By that time, Johnson was working on a different project, the mystery film Knives Out (2019). In April 2019, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy said their would be no new Star Wars films released for several years after The Rise of Skywalker because the company was taking their time to plan the next decade of storytelling for the franchise. She said Johnson would be working together with David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, who were producing their own new series of Star Wars films, and the intention was for all of the new films to be set in different parts of the Star Wars timeline from the Skywalker Saga. Also in April, Johnson stated that he would be returning to Star Wars once he completed work on Knives Out.

In October 2019, Johnson said Lucasfilm was working out their plans for future Star Wars films and he was continuing to discuss his planned trilogy with them, but he was also working on other projects. After Benioff and Weiss left the franchise later that month, Johnson re-confirmed that he was in talks with Lucasfilm about making the trilogy, and reiterated that he had a positive experience making The Last Jedi and had not been put-off by the franchise's so-called "toxic fandom". Following the success of Knives Out, Johnson committed to continuing that film series and began work on a sequel by January 2020. In February 2021, he said there were still plans for his Star Wars trilogy but there was no schedule for them due to his other commitments. The next month, Johnson signed a deal to make the next two Knives Out films, Glass Onion (2022) and Wake Up Dead Man (2025), for Netflix. By May 2022, Johnson's new Star Wars films were considered to have been "back-burnered" due to his focus on the Knives Out films, and Kennedy said the trilogy was not part of Lucasfilm's plans for the next three-to-five years. By that time, the studio had multiple Star Wars television series in production for the streaming service Disney+. They had still yet to move forward on any new films since The Rise of Skywalker, despite putting various ideas into development, and Kennedy said they were moving away from the idea of new trilogies and were instead focused on standalone films that contributed to the franchise's "persistent storytelling".

Johnson said in August 2022 that he had remained close with Kennedy and continued to discuss his potential trilogy. He said he would be heartbroken if he never returned to the Star Wars franchise and hoped the schedule would work out at some point. In March 2023, Variety reported on the state of the in-development Star Wars films and said Johnson was expected to be busy with the Knives Out films and his television series Poker Face for the "foreseeable future". The next month, Kennedy reiterated that Lucasfilm wanted to work with Johnson again but that would not happen until he was no longer busy with his other commitments. In November, Dave Filoni revealed that he was now chief creative officer at Lucasfilm, after serving as executive producer on various Star Wars television series, and would be directly involved in the planning of future films and series.